People have been raving about the new movie Arrival, which is an adaptation of Ted Chiang’s “Story of Your Life,” which I did a guest lecture on for a colleague’s class on science fiction some year ago. It’s unusual enough to see a science fiction movie hailed for being smart that Kate and I actually arranged a babysitter for the night, and caught it in the theater.

It’s a surprisingly credible effort at adapting a story I would’ve guessed was unfilmable. I wasn’t as blown away as a lot of the folks in my social media feed, though. I think that’s largely because I’m too familiar with the source material– a lot of the raves were from people who had either never read the story, or who had forgotten its plot. As is often the case when watching an adaptation of a favorite, I was distracted by noting changes from the source material.

There are fewer of these than I feared from the first trailer I saw, which overemphasized soldiers and helicopters to a worrying degree. I wasn’t really thrilled with those additions to the story, but they kept it to the minimum necessary for making a full-length movie out of it. I was much less happy with the resolution of the big crisis, which introduces a different sort of SF element that just confuses matters. And also makes the whole movie turn on an incredibly stilted and awkward conversation.

The thing I missed the most, though, you will likely be unsurprised to learn, was the physics. The original story justifies its premise not only with a Sapir-Whorf “learning languages changes your brain” sort of thing, but with a pretty good discussion of the alien’s approach to physics, which starts from Lagrangians. This unfolds in parallel with the translation work, and the two reinforce each other, and the emotional impact of the story, perfectly.

The physics part is basically completely absent from the movie– I caught one very brief reference to the aliens not responding to algebra, but showing interest in something more complicated, and that was it for science outside of linguistics. This has two negative effects: first, it shifts the story more toward “mystical aliens are mystical,” and second, it means that Jeremy Renner as the physicist character really doesn’t do much of anything.

Which is not to say that it’s a bad movie, by any stretch. Amy Adams does a great job in the lead, and the supporting players are all good. And it looks amazing. Everybody should go see it, or at least buy a ticket at the multiplex before going into a different theater to watch something else, so they make tons of money and will make more smart, great-looking SF movies.

It’s not going to displace the original Chiang story in my affections, though. It might seed a blog post over at Forbes about least-action principles, though…

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Comments

I’ve never read the book, but your remark about story changes you noted in “the first trailer I saw, which overemphasized soldiers and helicopters to a worrying degree” reminded me of a game my wife and I play when certain action-based ads appear on TV: movie or video game.

As video games have become more realistic, the two are becoming indistinguishable to the degree that any action movie has to have video-game elements in it simply as a marketing ploy.

I hadn’t read the story, but nevertheless I missed the physics/mathematics. It seemed to me that communicating through shared science would have been/will be the more likely scenario if/when we actually encounter aliens.

I guess they needed to have Renner there for the sake of the future relationship, but otherwise he was just dead weight.

Books

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Eureka: Discovering Your Inner Scientist will be published in December 2014 by Basic Books. "This fun, diverse, and accessible look at how science works will convert even the biggest science phobe." --Publishers Weekly (starred review) "In writing that is welcoming but not overly bouncy, persuasive in a careful way but also enticing, Orzel reveals the “process of looking at the world, figuring out how things work, testing that knowledge, and sharing it with others.”...With an easy hand, Orzel ties together card games with communicating in the laboratory; playing sports and learning how to test and refine; the details of some hard science—Rutherford’s gold foil, Cavendish’s lamps and magnets—and entertaining stories that disclose the process that leads from observation to colorful narrative." --Kirkus ReviewsGoogle+

How to Teach Relativity to Your Dog is published by Basic Books. "“Unlike quantum physics, which remains bizarre even to experts, much of relativity makes sense. Thus, Einstein’s special relativity merely states that the laws of physics and the speed of light are identical for all observers in smooth motion. This sounds trivial but leads to weird if delightfully comprehensible phenomena, provided someone like Orzel delivers a clear explanation of why.” --Kirkus Reviews "Bravo to both man and dog." The New York Times.

How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is published by Scribner. "It's hard to imagine a better way for the mathematically and scientifically challenged, in particular, to grasp basic quantum physics." -- Booklist "Chad Orzel's How to Teach Physics to Your Dog is an absolutely delightful book on many axes: first, its subject matter, quantum physics, is arguably the most mind-bending scientific subject we have; second, the device of the book -- a quantum physicist, Orzel, explains quantum physics to Emmy, his cheeky German shepherd -- is a hoot, and has the singular advantage of making the mind-bending a little less traumatic when the going gets tough (quantum physics has a certain irreducible complexity that precludes an easy understanding of its implications); finally, third, it is extremely well-written, combining a scientist's rigor and accuracy with a natural raconteur's storytelling skill." -- BoingBoing